The Curse
by KeshaRocks
Summary: Inspired by Disney's Frozen. For the First time in Forever (reprise) Roxas was gifted with tremendous power, but cursed with it as well. Can Axel help him control it, or will he be destroyed in the process?


**~Inspired by Frozen's "For the First Time in Forever (Reprise)" Possibly will be part of another story. Let me know what you think! :D Xxx~**

Roxas was gifted with tremendous power, and cursed with it as well.

He could harness both light and darkness. And at first, the Organization thought it would be of excessive use, but soon Roxas' powers grew too rapidly for him t control.

He lived in fear, secluded himself in the fear of harming his teammates. But after a casualty, to which he believes is his fault, he fled.

Leaving behind the castle and Organization, he put as much distance between him and them. Believing as long as he was away from everyone, he couldn't harm anyone. But in turn he tore a rift in the darkness, and now worlds were infected with Heartless and Nobodies.

But that's not why Axel's here.

Axel now stands in front of the newly constructed castle, Roxas' star chiseled into the luminescent bricks and no one guarded the gate. Sora and the others held back since Axel had a feeling that Axel was the only one Roxas really trusted.

Walking through the giant ebony doors, Axel gazes into an amazing foyer. The doors slamming behind him.

It was silent.

But he was taken aback by the view. He could make out tiny faces set into the façade, their mouths open in an O shape, their eyebrows angled down in fearsome scowls.

Axel focused on one of the stone faces, which struck him as being different from the rest. While this one shared the stern and foreboding expression of his comrades, his eyes, large and almond-shaped, seemed to convey more of a silent dare than award-away glower. And where the other faces had leafy beards, gaping mouths, and distorted features, this face bore a smooth and almost human look.

The sun poked through the clouds, lighting the very center of the court where a huge fountain stood. No water poured from the enormous green basin, and the elevated base was surrounded by graceful swans and solemn-faced shrubs.

At the very top of the fountain, a statue of a voluptuous nude woman looked down on them as they passed. She held a swath of fabric that clung to the lower half of her body and appeared to billow out behind her in a suspended arc. Curly-haired cherubs frolicked beneath the basin in a captured moment of abandon. Though the figures might have seemed playful in the daylight, something about the mix of shadows and stark light cast on their small faces through the trees made them appear more mischievous than free-spirited, more impish than gleeful.

The large swans that reveled with them, rearing back with wings outspread, looked somehow frantic.

Blocked by the wide bowl of the basin, the light could not reach the sultry figure of the nude woman who stood at the very top of the fountain, her veil billowing out behind her. She remained swathed in shadow, a silhouette that belonged to the night.

"Hello?" He calls out. "Hello? Roxas?"

"Axel?" a voice replies.

Axel looks up and at the top of the stairs, Roxas emerged from behind a column suspending a giant representation of his four-pointed star. Axel mouth agapes.

His robe was no longer black, but white with the intricate designs of Kingdom Hearts. Fine threads of black curled upward and chased one another downward, spreading their way across his arms, legs and torso, like veins infused with black poison. They connected and layered with one another, intertwining and weaving in and out to depict the curve of a delicate wrist, or to convey the motion of wind through the swells of gossamer veils.

Layers of glowing white draped and clung to the curvatures of his slight though tall frame, and it was as though the fabric itself was made from moonlight. A gauzy hood of white covered his head, like a cerement of the grave.

He was beautiful. Luminescent, like a sliver cut from a dying star.

His features, now gaunt and haunted, no longer held their usual innocent and compassion. Yet, he was dark beauty perfected, his cheekbones high and regal. His skin held the sheen of stardust and his hair, sandy blonde, massy spikes of silk, seemed to float about him like a golden halo.

It was his eyes though, that held everyone so completely transfixed. Fringed with dark lashes, a piercing ice-blue luster, the pale color of concentrated sapphire, that could cut as much as convince, they trapped him, and he found himself no longer able to blink.

Like a gorgeous nightmare.

But his face. Cold. Fierce. Empty. His blue eyes so wounded. Like someone snuffed out the Roxas they all knew and sent out a hollow shell in his place. Axel nearly crumbles to the floor, trying to adjust to this new Roxas.

"Whoa, Roxas. You look different. A, a good different. Very, very good different." Axel stammer.

Roxas stands near the banister, placing one hand gingerly while the other fisted at his side. "What are you doing here?" he asks.

"I came to see you. To help you." Axel explains. "The others are waiting outside but I wanted to come in and see you first."

"Why do you want to help me?" Roxas asks.

Axel looks confused for a moment. "Well, that's not the response I was looking for. I came back because I wanted to help you."

"You can't save what's already lost, Axel. I left the Organization so I wouldn't hurt anyone. Same goes for Sora and the others. At least out here know no one will get hurt."

"Roxas . . ."

"Please, Axel. Don't make this harder than it already is. I'm doing this just to protect you." Roxas says.

"And I came back because I care about you." Axel counters. "You don't have to protect me, I'm not afraid."

Roxas continues up the steps, huddling into himself.

"Please don't shut me out again." Axel says. "Please don't slam the door. You don't have to keep your distance anymore."

Axel follows him up the steps.

"'Cause for the first time in forever, I finally understand. For the first time in forever, we can fix this hand-in-hand. We can head down this mountain together. You don't have to live in fear."

Axel follows Roxas up to a main room in the tower.

"For the first time in forever, I will be right here."

"Axel," Roxas turns. "Please go back home. Your life awaits. Go enjoy the sun and open up the gates."

"Yeah but . . ."

"I know, you mean well. But leave me be. Yes I'm alone, but I'm alone and free." Roxas walked out to a balcony overlooking what once was the World that Never Was. Axel followed but Roxas steps back away from him. "Just stay away and you'll be safe from me."

"Actually we're not." Axel says.

"What do you mean, you're not?"

"I get the feeling you don't know."

Roxas rolls his eyes, "What do I not know?"

Axel nervously fidgets with his fingers. "Twilight town's in deep, deep, deep, deep, darkness."

"What?"

"You kind of set of an eternal blackout, everywhere." Axel says.

"Everywhere?"

"Well, hey it's okay. I mean you can just release it."

"No I can't. I, I don't know how." suddenly small specks of light and violet begins to snow down around them.

"Sure you can. I _know_ you can." Axel says. "Cause for the first time in forever,"

Roxas starts to take over him, "Oh I'm such a fool I can't be free!"

"_You don't have to be afraid_." Says Axel.

"No escape from the storm inside of me." Roxas replies.

"_We can work this out together_."

"I can't control the curse!"

"_We'll reverser the storm you've made_,"

"Oh, Axel please, you'll only make it worse!"

The storm around them begins to swirl faster, stronger. Axel tries to get closer to Roxas, though his cheeks burned from the sharp wind that had pressed against him the whole way, almost like an invisible force trying to hold him back.

"_Don't panic_."

"There's so much fear!"

"_We'll make the light shine bright_!"

"You're not safe here!"

By now the storm was strong and it seems no matter how hard Axel pushed it pushed back harder. Refusing him to even come close to Roxas.

"We can face this thing together . . .!"

"_No_!"

"We can change this winter weather . . ." Axel's words get lost amongst the storm.

Roxas is near screaming as he turns in a 360 degree. The words the events, everything is visibly swirling in his head, he struggles to set things straight. The chaos in his mind corrupting his better judgment. His eyes glowing white, then as he comes back around, his hair bleeds to black and his eyes are now a merciless topaz gold. The air inside the circle whipped around Roxas violently, like a vortex.

"And everything will be . . ."

The entire storm seems to condense and swirls near Roxas before the entire thing fans out as he screams, "I CAN'T!"

The darkness fans all around and strikes Axel in the heart. He clutches his chest and staggers to his knees.

He gasps and whimpers like he'd been stabbed in the heart. Roxas turns and sees rigid fissures of ink-black spreading like a crackled jigsaw pattern of broken bits reconstructed.

"No." Roxas whispered.


End file.
